As an Irish person, there's a historical fascination with America: America is the default green and promised land for Irish people and Italians; that's what we grow up with.

I was lucky in the sense that I was never blessed with an overly reflective nature.

Men don't know anything! Men don't know when their lives became so entirely awful, when everyone else turned into such a tosser! A man does not know how he came by the half a pie he is holding in his hand. And scientists - those frauds - seize on this, and try to use it as proof of the mysteries of human consciousness and the unknowable nature of the brain, which is rubbish!

One thing that's coming up a lot is: are you as grumpy as you appear from this Black Books thing.

The measure of a conversation is how much mutual recognition there is in it; how much shared there is in it. If you're talking about what's in your own head, or without thought to what people looking and listening will feel, you might as well be in a room talking to yourself.

Women are like canoes, full of soup. At first everyone is suspicious but then everyone wants one.

The trend now is to get away from stage bound sitcoms.